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ETA: trapped by politics

An interesting article on ETA, even more so as the catalyst has not been reported:

An important arsenal of shotguns, pistols and revolvers divided into four drums and buried in a forest north of Paris was found by the French police on 12 October, Spain’s national day. The arms cache belonged to ETA, the Basque terrorist group that ended its violent campaign for independence five years ago on 20 October 2011, but has so far refused to dissolve and decommission its weapons

After the killing stopped

A superb article in the FT 'After ETA: Spain's history of violence', which reminds one how the Spanish people, including those living in the basque region peacefully opposed ETA's violence - notably when executing elected politicians.

Slowly the ETA -v- Spain conflict ended

Hopefully this is the end as ETA declares an end to its violence and arranges for its weapons in France to be handed over. A short BBC News report that starts with:

Police in France have found nearly 3.5 tonnes of weapons, explosives and other materiel in eight caches handed over by Basque separatist group Eta.

(Reminds us later) Four years later, in 2010, Eta announced it would not carry out further attacks and in January 2011, it declared a permanent and "internationally verifiable" ceasefire but refused to disarm.

"No tinc por" which means "I'm not afraid" in Catalan.

The attacks in Catalonia, Spain - with a car driven down Barcelona's main street, killing fifteen and injuring dozens have been well covered here. The NYT had an excellent report, plus a BBC overview and The Soufan Group (TSG) a commentary.

Spain sadly has long experience of terrorism, nationalist and Islamist. One feature has been massive public displays of solidarity and yesterday 500k people walked in Barcelona, joined by the King. See:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41063293

Two video clips are different and illustrate how Muslims denounce the terrorists, who are suspected to be inspired by ISIS. First:

The sister of two terrorist suspects has condemned the attacks in Spain which left 15 people dead.

ETA releases statement announcing its complete dissolution

A Spanish newspaper (in English) article sub-titled:

Historic declaration puts an end to the organization 59 years after it first launched its violent campaign for Basque independence
In the message, ETA states that it has “completely dismantled “all of its structures,” and “has put an end to all its political activity. It will no longer express political positions, promote initiatives or interact with other actors...

If Spain’s Eta terrorist experience has a lesson to offer to the rest of Europe is that neither absolutism nor denial are effective ways of solving complex issues of national security. Had the Spanish political establishment accepted at an earlier stage that Eta did not operate in a sociopolitical vacuum and was therefore a political problem that required a political solution with everything that entails, the conflict over the Basque country might have ended sooner. In the long run, all politically-motivated conflicts eventually end. But the longer they are allowed to last, the more innocent people die and the more damage is caused.

Trusting an informant

A complicated story that illustrates the dangers of HUMINT and the source's death suggests he was in very deep - as this passage shows:

Es Satty became a CNI informant in 2014, three years before the attacks in exchange for his not being deported after he served four years in prison for drug trafficking. He died in a blast in the town of Alcanar the day before the attacks when a stockpile of the terrorists’ explosives accidentally went off.